Untouchable
by carlycarter
Summary: 'She may as well have died on that island.' One shot Juliet Fic- some mentions of Kate/Juliet. Post island.


Just a short fic written as part of a multi fandom challenge at LJ. Set post island , post season 3ish timeline. Assumes that by some unknown means Juliet (& Kate) have found their way off the island. Assumes some sort of established Kate/Juliet relationship. Exactly how they got together, how they got off the island, what happened to the others on the island, what happened with Kate and the murder trial etc etc are beyond the scope of this fic. I haven't a clue! The song "My Skin" By Natalie Marchant was running through my head as I wrote this.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. And apologies, as always, for being out of character. I know that Juliet as I see her is a far cry from the Juliet of canon. All written in fun, no offence to anyone or their favourite characters.

Enjoy

xox

_**Untouchable- Juliet Burke**_

Juliet Burke watches from her hiding spot, carefully concealed by the dense line of trees circling the playground. Children are running and playing in the early afternoon. The sun is shining. People are smiling, laughing, entirely unaware of her presence.

She stands up against a tree. She isn't smiling. She isn't frowning. She is only watching, silently. As if she does not really exist.

She thinks to herself, _Rachel looks happy._

She thinks to herself, _Rachel looks whole._

The sight before her eyes causes Juliet to re examine her own life over the past four years. At the centre of everything, always, had been Rachel. She had to survive, for Rachel. She had to come home, for Rachel. She had deceived, tortured, murdered, for Rachel. She had become heartless, ruthless, remorseless. It was justified, all of it, it was worth it. For this moment. To be home. To come back to Rachel. Her goal, her purpose, her justification. The reason she got our of bed in the morning. The reason she held on for so many years. All of it, _Rachel._

Juliet takes a deep breath as she allows the guilt to wash over her. That all consuming, suffocating, wretched guilt that plagued her for the past four years. Each and every day she has woken with a heaviness pressing upon her, the guilt of knowing she had abandoned her sister. She had let Rachel down. How stupid she had been to take that job. To drink that sedative. To find herself trapped on that wretched island. It was all her fault, of this she had no doubt.

Juliet could not imaging anything feeling worse than the insidious crushing guilt. The panic as she though of Rachel, alone, pregnant, sick. Wondering what had happened to her, missing her, needing her. And now, here she stands. And it hits Juliet like a tonne of bricks to realise that Rachel didn't need her. Not anymore. Rachel was perfectly happy. Rachel was unaffected by Juliet's disappearance. Rachel was untouched.

Rachel looks healthy, not a single outward sign of the cancer that plagued her years before. She looks strong. Rachel smiles at the little boy on the swings. Julian. He was no longer a baby, not the way Juliet had always imagined him. But a real little boy. A person in his own right, with thoughts and feelings and dreams of his own. The boy smiles like Rachel. An infectious grin that could light up a room. He is so precious, strikingly beautiful. And Juliet longs to pick him up in her arms, to hold him close. She wonders what he would think about his aunt, she wonders if Rachel had ever told him anything about her? But Juliet knows she hasn't got the right to come waltzing into his life after all this time. The boy was, just like Rachel, perfectly fine without her. She doesn't even allow herself a minute to stare at him in wonder. To realise the miracle of his existence. That the very fact he was even here was thanks to her research.

Juliet tells herself that she should be happy, she should be relieved. Rachel is ok. But something stings, more than a little, about the fact that Rachel doesn't miss her in the slightest. Something shatters inside of her to realise that there was just no reason for her to survive.

That she may as well have died on that island.

She had often wondered what Rachel made of her disappearance all those years ago. Did Rachel think she was dead? That she had run away? Had Rachel tried to find her? Had Rachel given up? She thought of Rachel often. But she thought of her alone. Sick. Needy. She never thought of her as strong, healthy, happy, fulfilled. Juliet had always thought of Rachel as missing her. Clearly, this was never the case.

Juliet doesn't stop to think that her judgements on her sister are harsh. That just because she has seen her, one hour, on a sunny afternoon, smiling and laughing with her son in the playground, that it means she is perfectly happy. That it means she doesn't miss Juliet. That she doesn't long for her sister the way Juliet longs for her.

Juliet doesn't stop to wonder what Rachel might have made of her, if she had been watching her one hour of her life on the island. If Rachel had seen her, living, laughing. Seen her at book club, baking muffins, seen her with Goodwin. Would she have concluded that Juliet was perfectly happy in her new life? If Rachel had seen her torture, threaten, shoot an innocent man? Would Rachel have concluded that the person she knew as her sister was long gone? That in her place was a cold remorseless killer?

Juliet shakes her head, a resigned smile crossing her face. It wasn't like it mattered if Rachel needed her or not. There was still no way she could walk up to her sister, say to her '_Hey Rachel, here I am. I'm back.' _How on earth could she explain those missing years? What explanation could ever be good enough for the way she had abandoned her sister? There was no justification for it. There were simply no words. And Rachel would not believe the truth even if Juliet told it. Besides, there are so many things Juliet simply doesn't want Rachel to know.

Juliet is not the same person she was before the island, she knows this. There is a darkness inside her. She wants to blame the island for this, to blame Ben. But she can not. She had a choice. She could have surrendered, she could have crumbled, she could have quietly died on that place. She chose to be a survivor. To survive by whatever means necessary. She chose to put up that wall, not to let anything affect her. To look out for number one. She had become a person so far removed from who she had been, that she wonders if Rachel would even recognise her?

Once, she had been a doctor. Intelligent. Compassionate. She had helped people. But she knows she can not go back to her chosen profession. It has been marred for her by the horrific death count of her patients on the island. Once she had been a mess. People walked all over her. But at least she had never hurt anyone, not intentionally. Then, she had arrived at that island. Then, she had sold her soul. She made her place, among the '_others'_. Knowing they were on the wrong side, knowing the things she partook in were heinous. And not caring. Truly not caring. She pushed it all aside. Because Ben was the one who was going to get her home. For this, she sold him her soul. Her integrity.

For exactly this- to be standing only metres from her sister, her nephew.

Perhaps it's simply too late. There is no way back to the person she used to be. There is no way back to Rachel.

Juliet finds herself longing, like she never thought she would, to be back on that island. To be trapped. Virtually a prisoner at Ben's mercy. She longs for the days when she had purpose. When she had a reason to keep on living, to keep fighting. The days when she still had hope.

She turns her eyes from the playground, and sinks to her knees in the dirt as the thought strikes her over and over-

_It was all for nothing!_

She laughs bitterly, hastily wiping the pathetic tears from her face.

She is thinking this- _If only Kate could see me now._

She is thinking of her last words to Kate that morning. "_Grow the hell up. You can't run away from everything that frightens you."_ And Kate's face, stricken. As if Juliet had slapped her.

Kate was the one born to run. The coward. It's how Juliet had seen it, how everyone had seen it. Night after night as she fell asleep, to the sound of Kate's rhythmic breathing by her side, she wondered if Kate would be there in the morning. She wondered how long before she just took off. Before she decided that things were just too messy, to intense, to frightening. Each morning when Juliet opened her eyes she was genuinely surprised to find Kate was still there.

Yet Kate, flawed as she may be, was not a coward. One thing you could say for Kate Austen- she was no body's doormat. She had murdered her father rather than let him mistreat her, mistreat her mother. She took action. While Juliet can't condone Kate's actions, she finds them extreme and disturbing, there is still something in her motivations that Juliet finds enviable, even admirable.

Kate was unafraid. After they way her own mother betrayed her, she still sought her out. More than once. Nothing held Kate back. Perhaps that made Kate fearless. Perhaps it made her honourable. Perhaps it made her stupid. But at least, she was not pathetic. No, Kate was not a pathetic sobbing mess, hunched over under a tree in a playground, crying over what could have been, what should have been. Berating herself for being too afraid to take a chance, to face her fears, her inadequacy, her guilt.

Kate would not understand this. Wanting something so badly, wanting to go to her sister, and simply not being able to do it. If Kate wanted something, and it was within her reach, Kate simply took it. And maybe Kate never got what she wanted. Just like with her mother, maybe Kate only got herself hurt all over again. But at least Kate won't be walking around for the rest of her life wondering "_what if?"_

Juliet realises in that moment, that while she is no longer the person Rachel had known and loved all those years ago, she is also not that same person Kate had come to know on the island. She isn't half the person Kate thinks she is, not anymore. Kate had always looked up to Juliet- as somehow wiser, somehow stronger, somehow more together. But Juliet knows she is no longer that person, either. She is somewhere in between. She is someone not recognisable to anyone. Someone unlovable. Untouchable. Someone not worthy of Rachel, not worthy of Kate. She has lost her true self along the way. There is simply nothing left of her to share with anyone else. She has nothing left to give.

Juliet knows now that Kate isn't going to be the one to leave her. Kate won't be the one who gets scared and runs away. She knows Kate won't see this coming. Kate won't be expecting that Juliet is going to abandon her, that Juliet is going to disappear, just like that, without a trace, and for no reason. She won't understand that it's just what Juliet does. It's exactly what she did to Rachel. She won't understand that the person she loves does not exist anymore. She won't understand that it's just for the best. That one day, she will stand somewhere, smiling in the sunlight, as if Juliet never existed. She won't look back. She won't even realise just how much better off she is. But Juliet will know.

Juliet tells herself she has to leave. Now. She stands to her feet, shaking the dirt from her clothing. She starts walking. She tells herself not to look back. She walks until her feet can't hold her any longer.

And the very last thing Juliet Burke tells herself is this- _Rachel survived. Kate will too._


End file.
